Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 5 (1901).djvu/433

Rh, Anthus obscurus. (No Icelandic name.)—I found this bird in all the Færœ Islands, and took a nest and young from a stone wall at Klaksvig. In Iceland I only once met with it in Vopnafjord, and then attached no importance to it, and did not attempt to procure the specimen, being unaware that it had never been recorded from Iceland. I do not think that I could have been mistaken in a bird with which I am so thoroughly familiar.

, A. pratensis. (Púfutitlingur.)—Common in most districts, and resident. From observations I made I thought this bird ought to be separated from A. pratensis, and Faber's name, A. islandicus, restored; as I detected a slight difference in the song, in the structure of the nest, in the plumage of adults and young, but, most important of all, in the fact that the colour of the inside of the mouth, in the nestling, is flesh-white, as compared with the scarlet orange in our bird. After more mature study, however, and the examination of various stages of the young of our bird during the present season of 1901, I think it best not to further discuss the question until I have paid another visit to Iceland to satisfy myself that the more important characters are permanent. I obtained adult male and female, various stages of the young, and nest with five young just hatched.

sp.?.—I made a special visit to the least known portion of a lovely valley, the sides of which were clothed with dense forests of birch, some of the trees being from ten to fifteen feet high. The undergrowth was as dense as in many English thickets, and to penetrate this was a matter of considerable difficulty. I was lying concealed in this undergrowth, watching Hornemann's Redpoll, when I heard the vigorous song of a bird which was totally new to me. Cautiously observing, I saw, to my utter astonishment, a small Pipit clinging to an upright slender shoot of birch, precisely as a Whitethroat or Sedge-Warbler would do. When I made my appearance the bird left the twig, and, mounting into the air, continued its song, and flew right across the wide valley, singing the whole time, finally settling in a birch on the opposite side. These movements I followed with my Zeiss binoculars. My attention was shortly afterwards directed by Sigurdur to a little bird skulking amongst the thick scrub, and running along the twigs with as much dexterity as a Grasshopper-Warbler would do. Its movements were so quick, and the scrub so dense, that I could not see what the bird was; but, bringing it down, I was again amazed to find that it was one of the little Pipits I had just been watching. The markings of the feathers are very similar to those of the Icelandic Meadow-Pipit, but the bird is conspicuously more slender in build, although the wing-measurement is the same in both species,